Max Levchin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Max Levchin | |
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| Born | 1975 Kyiv, Ukraine, Soviet Union |
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| Occupation | computer scientist entrepreneur |
Max Levchin (born 1975) is a Ukrainian-born American computer scientist and entrepreneur widely known as co-founder (with Peter Thiel) and former Chief technology officer of PayPal.
Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), he moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1991. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and co-founded two companies that made Internet-tools, NetMeridian Software and SponsorNet New Media. In 1998, he founded Fieldlink with John Bernard Powers,David Sacks and Peter Thiel ,which was renamed as Confinity . Confinity was later merged with another company X.com and combined entity was PayPal.
Thier is a lot of controversy around Merger of X.com and Confinity . Many believe that it was not a good deal for PayPaland it was forced on them by their VCs. Eric Jackson, An early employee of PayPal offers a detailed account of the merger in his bestselling book PayPal Wars . X.com CEO Elon Musk published an online rebuttal of these rumour at valleywag .
PayPal went public in February 2002, and was subsequently acquired by eBay. His 2.3% stake in PayPal was worth approximately $34 million at the time of the acquisition.[1] He is primarily known for his contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts[2] and is also the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA.
In 2004, Levchin founded Slide[3], a personal media-sharing service.
He also helped start Yelp, an online social networking and review service.
Levchin was an executive producer for the movie Thank You for Smoking. Levechin was also featured in Brilliant Issue of PortFolio Magazine by Condenast Publications
[edit] Notes and references
[edit] External links
- http://www.levchin.com/ Personal website, includes photos from PayPal IPO.
- Max Levchin has a professional profile on the web.
- NerdTV Interview (video, audio, and transcript available) - 30 June 2005
- iinnovate interview Two Stanford business school students interview Max
- New York Times: After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again Max Levchin profile
- An alternate history OF PayPal according to X.com CEO Elon Musk
